Clement Virgo’s film adaptation of Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes moves into production

Canadian film director Clément Virgo (Poor Boy’s Game, Lie With Me) is developing an adaptation of Lawrence Hill’s bestseller, The Book of Negroes, to begin shooting next year.

Hill’s publisher, HarperCollins Canada, sold the film rights to Virgo’s production company, Conquering Lion Pictures, in 2009.

In an interview with film website indieWire, Virgo says, “The main character, Aminata, is someone who I really connected to as a reader and a filmmaker. I thought that this would be a great character to build a film around, so we contacted Lawrence Hill. I told him I was really interested in his book and that I would love to work on the script with him. To my surprise, he agreed.”

“Might give teens violent ideas”: the TPL’s 2010 list of challenged books

Freedom to Read Week is a month away, but Toronto Public Library trustee Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler got a jump on the festivities today by releasing, on his Twitter feed, the 2010 report from the TPL’s Materials Review Committee, which summarizes how the committee dealt with library-user complaints about books, DVDs, etc., over the past year. The nine-item list includes some not-so-surprising targets for complaints, including Tintin in the Congo, which is noted for depicting “Africans in [a] stereotypical fashion that is no longer acceptable,” and the movie Bruno, which one or more patrons found to contain “sexual content and visually explicit pictures not suitable for children or youth.”

There are some odd inclusions, though: The Waiting Dog, a 2003 picture book by Carolyn and Andrea Beck published by Kids Can Press, is said to contain “obscene content, language, and pictures.” (For the record, Q&Q’s review of The Waiting Dog says that “this book is inappropriate for squeamish kids and those afraid of dogs. On the other hand, if you’re on for some exuberant grotesquerie, it’s a very fine specimen of its kind.”)

The best complaint is the one directed at D.E. Athkins’ 2006 YA novel Swans in the Mist: not only does it contain “sadistic scenes,” it “might give teens violent ideas.” (Really, what doesn’t give teens violent ideas?)

While some of the materials were re-categorized (that volume of Tintin was moved to the adult graphic novel section), Chaleff-Freudenthaler notes in his tweet that only one of the nine books was actually removed: an error-ridden volume purporting to help would-be bean counters prepare for their Chartered Financial Analyst exams.

Way to Display! The Hunger Games trilogy at Vancouver Kidsbooks

The upcoming visit from author Suzanne Collins (on Nov. 2) to Vancouver Kidsbooks inspired the store to once again go all-out on its exterior, opting for an eye-catching – yet more than a little menacing – “fear the future” theme very much appropriate to Collins’ mega-selling Hunger Games trilogy. (Photo courtesy of Scholastic Canada)

[Know of a great bookstore display? Made one yourself? Take a photo and drop it in our Flickr pool or send it to nwhitlock at quillandquire.com.]

Way to Display! Under Heaven at the Flying Dragon Bookshop

The good folks at Toronto’s Flying Dragon Bookshop have put together a strikingly equine display for Under Heaven (Viking Canada), the new novel by Guy Gavriel Kay. As you can see, the display includes not only Under Heaven, but other mythologically minded or otherwise thematically linked titles. A new Kay tome lifts all boats, after all. (Photos courtesy of Flying Dragon Bookshop)

Above: two of the people responsible for the display. We’re going to go ahead and assume there was sugar involved.

[As part of Quillblog’s ongoing commitment to filling our site with ephemera, sundries, and both flotsam and jetsam from around the book world, we have instituted a semi-regular feature entitled Way to Display!, in which we feature striking and eye-catching window displays (or, indeed, interior displays) from bookstores across the country. If you have seen a great display (or have just made one yourself), feel free to send it our way. Dropping them in our Flickr pool is one way to get the pictures to us, or you can e-mail them directly to nwhitlock at quillandquire.com.]

Way to Display! Chester at Mabel’s Fables

As part of Quillblog’s ongoing commitment to filling our site with ephemera, sundries, and both flotsam and jetsam from around the book world, we are instituting a semi-regular feature entitled Way to Display!, in which we feature striking and eye-catching window displays (or, indeed, interior displays) from bookstores around the country. If you have seen a great display (or have just made one yourself), feel free to send it our way. (Dropping them in our Flickr pool is one way to get the pictures to us, or you can mail them directly to nwhitlock at quillandquire.com)

We kick things off with this fat cat display for Mélanie Watt’s Chester’s Masterpiece in the window of Toronto’s Mabel’s Fables. (Photo courtesy of Kids Can Press)

The most interesting bookstores of the world

Just because the greatest books rely on imagination and abstract images doesn’t mean the stores that sell them have to. Thankfully, some of them do anyway. A photoblog that will be of particular interest to book lovers (or indeed anyone who appreciates fine architecture).

Anosh Irani in the NYT

An op-ed piece by Canadian novelist and playwright Anosh Irani appears online in The New York Times today. Irani, who was born in Mumbai, writes about the seige of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel during the Mumbai attacks last week.

As I watched the Taj Mahal hotel breathe fire, I remembered my grandfather, Burjor. For more than 30 years, he was the florist at the hotel, ordering roses flown in daily from New Delhi.

I essentially grew up in the hotel. And I would have been there on Wednesday night, browsing in its bookshop, and at the Leopold Café nearby, if it were not for the last-minute distraction of a soccer match in my neighborhood.

It is one of the quietest and most picturesque locations in Mumbai. It can feel like it’s a world away from the city. Except when it’s not, like when the attacks started.

Irani was named as one of Q&Q‘s “writers to watch” in 2002. In 2007, he was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Drama for The Bombay Plays, and his second novel, The Song of Kahunsha, was a Canada Reads selection.

Flickr photo roundup: Book Camp, Paul Watson, and Other Goose

Here’s a quick roundup of some recent event photos posted in the Q&Q Flickr pool:

Photographer Fleur-Ange Lamothe posted a couple of images from Brantford Book Camp 2007. It was a three-day event in mid-August that brought together young would-be authors and top children’s writers and illustrators. Here, author Sylvia McNicoll reads to the assembled group.

Above, war photographer and journalist Paul Watson signs books at an event at the Library and Archives in Ottawa on August 22, 2007. Watson also spoke at length about his experiences in South Africa, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Ottawa International Writers Festival has kindly posted over an hour’s worth of audio files of the whole evening here.

Pages Books & Magazines and Groundwood Books hosted “Calypso Night!” in honour of Barbara Wyn Klunder’s new book Other Goose: Recycled Rhymes for Our Fragile Times. The event took place at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel on August 30 and included a calypso reggae band and a DJ.

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

Friday Photo: Giant orb at Trinity College library

This week’s Friday photo comes courtesy of Flickr photographer Stephen Cullen. It’s a beautiful shot of the broken orb sculpture sitting outside The Berkeley Library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Now, we don’t know a lot about sculpture, but does this remind anyone else of the “under-construction” Death Star from Return of the Jedi?

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

Friday Photo: Harry and the Potters at the London Public Library

Friday photo returns! This week’s shot comes courtesy of the London Public Library, which hosted a concert on Aug. 1 featuring not only Harry and the Potters, but Draco and the Malfoys. The bands will be in Toronto this weekend for the big Potter geek-out, Prophecy 2007. Until then, Hey! Ho! Em-bar-go!!

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.